


Spectre

by jackie spades (ahabsyndrome)



Category: DCU
Genre: Earth-3, Gen, includes the unpleasant aftermath of some nasty torture and attempted murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahabsyndrome/pseuds/jackie%20spades
Summary: owlman murders sleep





	Spectre

_Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,_  
_Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;_  
_Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd_  
_Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,_  
_That, when the brains were out, the man would die,_  
_And there an end; but now they rise again,_  
_With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,_  
_And push us from our stools: this is more strange  
_ _Than such a murder is._

  
  
  


Everything burns. From his scalp to the bottom of his feet, Jackie’s covered in a sensation like fire licking at his skin, and not an inch is spared. His clothes are heavy with it, sopping wet and hanging off of his bruised and broken body as he struggles over the rocks and out of the water, heaving up watery blood and chemicals. It feels like vomiting bleach. His cheeks are torn, almost in halves, exposing his red-stained teeth even when his mouth is closed. The taste of blood almost overpowers the anti-whatever he’d been tossed into. The air comes in after he gets the water out of the way, the burn of it still filling his entire trachea. He’s graduated from a desperate gurgle to a ragged wheeze, but he can’t seem to move at all without every sense screaming at him that he’s teetering on the brink of death. He must be. No person could have survived that.

Eventually, he gets to the grass. Collapsing, exhausted, on his back, he stares up at the sky. He’s struggling to focus on one thought, but all the trains have raced away from the station already. It’s like trying to catch butterflies. Or fireflies. You don’t see fireflies in Gotham, it’s awfully sad. No stars, no flies. No little bits of light floating around in the sky above the dark, smog-laden city. Too much of that air pollution.

But the _moon_. There it is, bright and big and round and the only thing he can see in that inky black darkness above him. It’s beautiful. And this is silly. Someone just tried to kill him and he’s admiring a celestial body miles and miles away. Get up, get up. Rise and shine! He struggles to his feet, swaying a bit with fatigue and pain. He’s missing his gloves. His naked hands, they’re a stark white all over. That’s not an alive-people color, is it? 

“‘m I dead?” He mutters to himself, and chokes on a chuckle--because he’s confused.

If he’s dead, maybe Harley’s around. _Harley_. He heard her scream, and he heard her silence before they took him. She’s gone. Or they’re both gone. If they’re both gone, maybe they can be gone together. Having a dead friend might be nice, but only if he’s also dead. Or maybe having a friend at all, at least for him, is revolutionary enough. He’s only got the one.

And _Eve_. Eve who went away. How many times has he ruined himself now?

He laughs, a broken sound bordering on a sob--because it’s awful.

Every time he finds a way. A Loophole. The universe gives him another banana peel to slip on, and tops it all off with a kick to the gut when he’s finished falling down the stairs. Is there really a point to getting back up at all? Why does he keep trying? It’s starting to feel more like a sad joke than anything.

He turns his gaze to the moon again, his vision starting to clear. He can see the darker spots on it now, the splotches marring a vast surface of glowing white. It’s hard to believe he’s never noticed before. There’s a shape up there, recognizable now that he’s really looking. It almost seems like a. Oh.

It starts in his stomach, a churn that almost makes him sick at first and he lurches, a bubbly sensation boiling within him and making its way up to his throat. He’s still burning, outside and now inside, a jolt of energy that he’s never felt before and if he doesn’t let it out somehow his entire body might just explode.

Jackie’s cackling now--because it’s _hilarious._

  


The Owl gazes down at the vat, the steam rising from the bubbling pool of green, bringing its foul scent to his face. He needs to look into some adjustments to his mask, Gotham’s unique array of offensive smells are starting to get irritating. He bends down to pick up the razorang from the floor. It’s silver, horseshoe shaped, almost. Hooked sharply at the ends. He’s been trying out different designs lately, he thinks this one isn’t quite what he’s looking for, but he’s on the right track. The thing is still smeared with that rogue comedian's blood. It wasn’t even long enough ago for it to dry yet.

_Is it funny now?_

All there is to do now is wait for news to get out. Maybe they’ll try to make a martyr out of him, but he’s fairly confident that he’s gotten his point across. This isn’t a comedy show, and there are no heroes or merry men in Gotham. He will get his silence back.

The bloodied razorang holds his gaze a bit longer. Thoughtfully, he turns it over in his hand, then drops it abruptly on the ground with a clatter. He’ll leave the evidence of his involvement, in case the simpletons need the extra hint not to follow in the madman's footsteps.

A distant shriek nearly startles him, and he turns his head in its direction. Outside, it came from outside. For a second he mistakes it for fear, and then another for grief, only to settle on the ever unfortunate and unsettling conclusion of laughter. His ears are playing tricks on him and he knows it. It’s the ghost of a sound, some memory hitting replay against his will and mistaking itself for actual noise. He goes outside to look for the source.

It’s eerily quiet when he exits the building. The lack of any sign of disturbance grates on his nerves instead of easing them though. He forces a calm into his stride as he walks beside the water, looking off into the trees with narrowed eyes. God willing, he’ll find a body nearby and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately, what he sees is much less corporeal than a mere corpse.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of white and purple before he can hear it speak. And in a voice almost too shrill to be recognizable, it screeches at him.

_“Bunny!”_

The manifestation is gone before he can fully turn around, and the silence that follows seizes him with an icy grip. Queasy, he searches for several minutes and finds nothing. Nothing hiding in the trees, the undergrowth, or even the water. Nobody. Nothing. He doesn’t let himself ask if anyone was ever here at all.  



End file.
